Seeking Redemption

As the CSU women’s swimming and diving team compete in the Early

Bird Invitational at Edora Pool and Ice Center it looks to get a

little redemption from their loss to Rice University two weeks ago

today and Saturday.

The Rams will compete against Wyoming, Air Force, Northern

Colorado, Colorado School of Mines and the University of Colorado

with competition starting today at 5 p.m.

“Wyoming will be our toughest opponent, but they’re not the

toughest we’ll face in the season,” said senior co-captain Lissa

Fischer. “We’re not too worried about them.”

With a team that appears the strongest with regard to overall

talent, the Rams have a good chance to repeat as winners of the

Early Bird.

When asked on the team’s chances of a repeat head coach John

Mattos said, “I don’t have too many doubts.”

Strong words coming from a coach that beams with pride for his

team.

“We’ll have a number of girls that will stand out in this meet,”

Mattos said. “The good performers against Rice will repeat, and the

ones without a chance last meet will step up and perform.”

Senior co-captain Katie Peck, who demolished her competition

last week in the 400 IM with a blazing time of four minutes, 33.25

seconds, believes the team will bounce back from the Rice loss in

the meet.

“We’ve always been strong at Early Bird; everyone on the team

will perform well,” she said.

According to Mattos, to perform well enough to win the Rams will

have to work on some things.

“We have to improve on a number of things,” he said. “We raced

well against Rice but our finishes were suspect; we didn’t finish

off our opponents. We’ll have to concentrate on our finishing and

hopefully we’ll see if that helps us step it up a notch performance

wise.”